RE: The Age of Stupid Premiers
I did see it, and have to confess that I was disappointed. A heart-felt and sincere efort, but, in my view, not successful. Despite some brilliant pieces and insights, there were a lot of problems. Too many loose ends and points made vaguely or imprecisely. Too many questions embedded in the basic narrative (How's that guy providing the energy and maintenance for all those massive computers as humanity nearly vanishes and society has collapsed? Or didn't the filmmakers just love all too much that fancy computer wizardry as a way of telling a story, so, what the hell with the basic narrative underpinning?) How about telling us the real story of the long conflict in the Nigerian Delta region? And, by the by, why did that bright young lady decide she was going to be famous instead of becoming a doctor--maybe because she was seeing herself depicted on film and having those good times with the film makers--a problem of the observed being changed by the observor, perhaps? And, ho! w about pointing out that the Delta region itself is likely to be an early victim of sea level rise? And, similarly, throughout the film, just a lot of things that are not well carried through nor adequately explored. And, in forty years of activism and teaching, if there is one thing that I think I have learned it is that you are not likely to get very far with people by calling them stupid. No better way to close a mind than that. Or invite irritated counter-arguments that are likely to be beside the point but that assert a will and intelligence on the part of the one called stupid. For me, one of the most important and well-done segments was the one on NIMBY and wind farms in England. This one was well-framed and beautifully told in a way that at least should have an impact. One felt that the film-makers were more assured and competent on their home ground. As an example of organizing, it didn't seem well-organized--there was virtually no local publicity and the theater was near empty in Sacramento, and clearly with the already deeply converted. The Hollywood premier imitation was cheesey and distracting. And, rather than simply having an academic tell us that mass organizing was a good idea, or in addition to that, actually telling us about some of the many examples of effective organizing that are going on? It seems to me that An Inconvenient Truth remains a much better film whether one is looking for accuracy or impact. I would be interested in reading what others think. Angus Angus Wright Professor Emeritus of Environmental Studies California State University, Sacramento From: owner-gep...@listserve1.allegheny.edu [owner-gep...@listserve1.allegheny.edu] On Behalf Of Alcock, Frank [falc...@ncf.edu] Sent: Monday, September 21, 2009 7:34 PM To: rldavis; NEES List; Global Environmental Education Cc: Monique Bosch Subject: RE: The Age of Stupid Premiers Did anyone besides myself see the film tonight? If so, what did you think? From: owner-gep...@listserve1.allegheny.edu on behalf of rldavis Sent: Sat 9/12/2009 4:48 PM To: NEES List; Global Environmental Education Cc: Monique Bosch Subject: The Age of Stupid Premiers Hi all-forgive me for cross posting. I wanted to bring the premier of a very important film to you attention. I was fortunate enough to see The Age of Stupid at a special showing for the attendees of the Climate Project’s Nashville Summit in March. At that time, it had only been released in the UK. It is a provocative, powerful, plausible, and disturbing film set in a post global warming world of 2055. From that perspective, it looks back at our own time, the “age of stupid” and chronicles 6 highly plausible (in fact, I see most of them actually going on now) stories that are interwoven to show how we got to a destroyed world. It is beautifully acted with Pete Postlethwaite as the principle and the production is excellent. About 20% fiction and 80% documentary. Here is the “blurb” from the web site: The Age of Stupid is the new four-year epic from McLibel director Franny Armstrong. Oscar-nominated Pete Postlethwaite stars as a man living alone in the devastated world of 2055, looking at old footage from 2008 and asking: why didn’t we stop climate change when we had the chance? MORE This will be premiered at a special showing at 400 theaters in North America on Monday 21 September at 7:30 eastern (6:30 central, etc.). I will be urging my own students to attend and I urge you to bring it to the attention of your students, friends, colleagues. You can get further information on both the film at the premier at the following web site: http://www.ageofstupid.net/screenings/country/United%20States the actual web site for the film (there is a link on the previous web site) is www.ageofstudpid.net. This site also talks about where to see the premier in 149 other countries around the world. For a
RE: Borlaug's legacy not so laudable?
Aside from the obvious arrogant, simple-minded, bullying aggression that can be detected in most of what Borlaug said or wrote in public, I think the real issue is the whole context that shaped and continues to shape the thinking of many agricultural scientists. For the historical part, you might be interested (my own arrogant self-promotion) in my book The Death of Ramon Gonzalez: The Modern Agricultural Dilemma, (U. Texas, 2nd ed. 2005) that describes and analyzes the thinking and politics that went into the design of the Green Revolution plant breeding program, based on an agreement made between the Rockefeller Foundation, the U.S. govt., and the Mexican government in 1941. Borlaug was just the lucky guy who applied for and got the position--a host of good plant breeders were available to perform the same task. The intellectual foundations were laid by scientists Stakman, Bradfield, and Manglesdorf on a template that was developed to respond to a unique set of political ! circumstances at the time; in which, interestingly, Henry Wallace played an active and intriguing part. One part of my interpretation was based on material in Bruce Jennings, Foundations of International Agricultural Research: Science and Politics in Mexican Agriculture (Westview Press: 1988) Jennings is particularly strong on how the research in which Borlaug participated was systematically and often dishonorably defended by the Rockefeller folks from criticism by various people who were anticipating the problems of the Green Revolution. Jennings discovered a lot of interesting memos in the Rockefeller Foundation archives to this effect. Some of his work appeared in journal articles. My work is stronger in terms of the deeper historical background and the larger context and consequences. Both give the lie to the idea that the negative consequences were unforeseeable, and consequently, support the idea that as foreseeable, the consequences might have been at least partially avoidable. I have a shorter, condensed and somewhat improved (by further research) version of this set in a somewhat different frame that will come out as an article sometime next year in a volume on Mexican environmental history edited by historian Chris Boyer of U. Illinois and published by U. Arizona Press. I don't know that I am free to mail it out yet--you could email Boyer and ask if he is able to share it at this point. Angus Wright Professor Emeritus of Environmental Studies California State University, Sacramento From: owner-gep...@listserve1.allegheny.edu [owner-gep...@listserve1.allegheny.edu] On Behalf Of Charles Chester [charles.ches...@gmail.com] Sent: Saturday, September 19, 2009 7:32 PM To: gep-ed@listserve1.allegheny.edu Subject: Borlaug's legacy not so laudable? Hi everyone, Can anyone lead me to a journal article or academic text that makes a similar argument to the one made here: http://www.grist.org/article/2009-09-14-thoughts-on-the-legacy-of-norman-borlaug. I've got plenty of sources on the problems associated with the Green Revolution; I'm mostly interested in seeing those arguments made in terms of Borlaug the person...so I suppose what I'm looking for is most likely (though hardly exclusively) to be found in a history journal. Many thanks, and please send answers to me and I'll compile for the whole list. -Charlie Charles C. Chester, Ph.D. 9 Lowell Street, Cambridge, MA 02138 USA wk 617.304.9373 fx 617.245.4613 The Conservation Climate Change Clearinghousehttp://www.ccc-clearinghouse.net Brandeishttp://www.brandeis.edu/departments/environmental - Y2Yhttp://www.y2y.net - Root Capitalhttp://www.rootcapital.org/ Conservation Across Bordershttp://www.islandpress.org/bookstore/details.php?prod_id=673 - Peace Parkshttp://mitpress.mit.edu/catalog/item/default.asp?ttype=2tid=11250 Biodiversity Linkshttp://fletcher.tufts.edu/biodiversity @ The Fletcher Schoolhttp://fletcher.tufts.edu/ierp
RE: logos and birds
On species recognition--- Perhaps of interest along these lines: I taught at Cal State Sacramento, the campus of which is located along the American River. The American River Parkway includes all the land between the levees for an approximately forty mile run from Folsom Dam to the confluence with the Sacramento River. Most of this is left relatively undisturbed by human activity, though there are some formal parks and a metropolitan area of around 2 million beyond the levees on either side. I spend a great deal of time walking, canoeing and swimming in the Parkway so know the area pretty well. As an experiment in various sections of classes I taught called Contemporary Environmental Issues and others called Environmental Ethics, I gave a species list to students. This list consisted of all the species I could easily think of off the top of my head that I had observed along the American River. This consisted of about 150 species of flora and fauna ranging from cottonwood and oak trees to beavers and otters. They were mostly very easily observed, with some exceptions such as the elusive otters, such that students resident in Sacramento for any period would have been expected to have observed most of them hundreds if not many thousands of times. Their task was to check off every species that they thought could be found in the American River Parkway. I used the ordinary common language names universally used in the region, not the Linnean names. The best answer was the one that checked all of the species. I had expected an average of something, say, between fifty and a hundred. Instead, the average number checked was eleven. In a few classes one or two students checked all or something close to it, but as the average of eleven attests, most of the students went well below fifty. Some checked two or three. A few thought that it was a trick and answered none. On discussion, some of those who had checked none said that they had assumed that the purpose of the exercise was to show how people had devastated nature and they didn't recognize many of the species in any case. Perhaps even more discouraging was that the students in the Environmental Ethics class were almost all Environmental Studies majors, while those in the Contemporary Env. Issues class came from diverse backgrounds, but that made very little difference in the responses. That is, Environmental Studies students did only slighly better than a more diversified selection of students. Nor, on average, did biology students do notably better. The good part about the exercise was that it proved a very useful starting point for discussion, leading in a variety of directions. A very common response was that we don't have time for that, although it was the rare student who would not then confess to spending a lot of time watching sports, playing video games, drinking beerMany contested some species, arguing that it was simply not possible that there were such things as beavers and deer in the midst of a city--these, they thought were rare and only to be found in the wild or that place called nature. These folks were sometimes devotees of such television shows as Nature where they trusted the real species could be observed. But most ended up reflecting that they simply didn't pay much attention when they were outdoors, were embarrassed to ask the names of species, weren't really very interested. At least some did seem to conclude that it might be worth spending more time and more attentive time on the Parkway and outdoors in general. So, for what it is worth. I gave up doing this after a time as it tended to make me feel rather demoralized. Angus Angus Wright Professor Emeritus of Environmental Studies California State University, Sacramento From: owner-gep...@listserve1.allegheny.edu [owner-gep...@listserve1.allegheny.edu] On Behalf Of Gupta, Aarti [aarti.gu...@wur.nl] Sent: Thursday, September 03, 2009 10:41 AM To: Thomas Eatmon; Gary Gardner Cc: gep-ed@listserve1.allegheny.edu; Erik Assadourian Subject: RE: logos and birds This is really fascinating, thanks! Of interest to us not only as scholars but also as parents... Best regards, Aarti Gupta Aarti Gupta Assistant Professor Environmental Policy Group (175) Wageningen University Hollandseweg 1 6706 KN Wageningen, Netherlands Phone: +31-(0)317-482496 / 484452 Fax: +31(0)317-483990 Mobile: +31-(0)628729382 Email: aarti.gu...@wur.nlmailto:aarti.gu...@wur.nl Web:www.enp.wur.nlhttp://www.enp.wur.nl/ From: owner-gep...@listserve1.allegheny.edu [mailto:owner-gep...@listserve1.allegheny.edu] On Behalf Of Thomas Eatmon Sent: 03 September 2009 19:14 To: Gary Gardner Cc: gep-ed@listserve1.allegheny.edu; Erik Assadourian Subject: Re: logos and birds Gary, Also see Children and Nature 2008: A Report on the Movement to Reconnect Children to the Natural
RE: great urban thinkers compilation
Add to my earlier suggestions the Marxist geographer, David Harvey. Angus Wright Professor Emeritus of Environmental Studies California State University, Sacramento From: owner-gep...@listserve1.allegheny.edu [owner-gep...@listserve1.allegheny.edu] On Behalf Of Peter Jacques [pjacq...@mail.ucf.edu] Sent: Tuesday, December 23, 2008 10:35 AM To: gep-ed@listserve1.allegheny.edu Subject: RE: great urban thinkers compilation Dear list, Our esteemed leader of the gep-ed list has told me that my original query never made it to the group, my apologies. I am in this midst of a project that has sprung from my urban enviro class, and it seems to me that this aspect is somewhat underdeveloped in our studies of gep. While they vary, it seems that most of these urban thinkers do more than figure street Plattes, but think about space, personal democratic interaction in civic sphere, technology, and alienation. In my own list, I had mostly dead white guys (Mumford, Giddes, Bookchin, etc) and Jane Jacobs. I was hoping for any suggestions of who the list might think of as great urban thinkers, and particularly thinkers/writers from the global South. Thus far, several of you have now emailed me and I will re-post another summary if there are more. Thank you for your interest and help! Peter Peter J. Jacques, Ph.D. Department of Political Science University of Central Florida P.O. Box 161356 4000 Central Florida Blvd. Orlando, FL 32816-1356 Phone: (407) 823-2608 Fax: (407) 823-0051 http://ucf.academia.edu/PeterJacques Wallace, Richard rwall...@ursinus.edu 12/23/2008 12:57 PM Peter, I also did not see the original post. These are from my wife Shannon, thanks to her urban planning experience. Not political scientists, but indeed urban thinkers. Irving Altman Timothy Beatley William Cronin Andres Duany Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk (collaborative work) Joel Garreau Dolores Hayden Setha Low Kevin Lynch John Reps Camillo Sitte William Whyte Happy holidays everyone! Cheers, Rich -- Richard L. Wallace, Ph.D. Associate Professor and Chair Environmental Studies Program Ursinus College P.O. Box 1000 Collegeville, PA 19426 (610) 409-3730 (610) 409-3660 fax rwall...@ursinus.edu It is not enough to be busy; so are the ants. The question is: what are we busy about? - Henry David Thoreau From: owner-gep...@listserve1.allegheny.edu [mailto:owner-gep...@listserve1.allegheny.edu] On Behalf Of VanDeveer, Stacy Sent: Tuesday, December 23, 2008 12:37 PM To: Wright, Angus; Peter Jacques; gep-ed@listserve1.allegheny.edu Subject: RE: great urban thinkers compilation yes! Mumford! THE CULTURE OF CITIES being a good place to start... -Original Message- From: owner-gep...@listserve1.allegheny.edu on behalf of Wright, Angus Sent: Tue 12/23/2008 12:32 PM To: Peter Jacques; gep-ed@listserve1.allegheny.edu Subject: RE: great urban thinkers compilation I did not see this request earlier, so I am not sure what you are calling about. But among great urban thinkers the top three on my list would be: Lewis Mumford, Jane Jacobs, and Paul Goodman. Angus Wright Professor Emeritus of Environmental Studies California State University, Sacramento From: owner-gep...@listserve1.allegheny.edu [owner-gep...@listserve1.allegheny.edu] On Behalf Of Peter Jacques [pjacq...@mail.ucf.edu] Sent: Monday, December 22, 2008 5:32 PM To: gep-ed@listserve1.allegheny.edu Subject: great urban thinkers compilation Hi everyone, I realize I forgot to summarize the results of my request for suggestions of those whom we might consider great urban thinkers. But, alas, there were no responses, which may confirm my sense that this area is underdeveloped for our field. Merry, merry, Peter Peter J. Jacques, Ph.D. Department of Political Science University of Central Florida P.O. Box 161356 4000 Central Florida Blvd. Orlando, FL 32816-1356 Phone: (407) 823-2608 Fax: (407) 823-0051 http://ucf.academia.edu/PeterJacques
RE: great urban thinkers compilation
I did not see this request earlier, so I am not sure what you are calling about. But among great urban thinkers the top three on my list would be: Lewis Mumford, Jane Jacobs, and Paul Goodman. Angus Wright Professor Emeritus of Environmental Studies California State University, Sacramento From: owner-gep...@listserve1.allegheny.edu [owner-gep...@listserve1.allegheny.edu] On Behalf Of Peter Jacques [pjacq...@mail.ucf.edu] Sent: Monday, December 22, 2008 5:32 PM To: gep-ed@listserve1.allegheny.edu Subject: great urban thinkers compilation Hi everyone, I realize I forgot to summarize the results of my request for suggestions of those whom we might consider great urban thinkers. But, alas, there were no responses, which may confirm my sense that this area is underdeveloped for our field. Merry, merry, Peter Peter J. Jacques, Ph.D. Department of Political Science University of Central Florida P.O. Box 161356 4000 Central Florida Blvd. Orlando, FL 32816-1356 Phone: (407) 823-2608 Fax: (407) 823-0051 http://ucf.academia.edu/PeterJacques
RE: location strategies ENGOs
Activists Beyond Borders by Margaret Keck would be a good starting point. Angus Wright From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of sofie bouteligier [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Tuesday, February 26, 2008 11:59 PM To: gep-ed@listserve1.allegheny.edu Subject: location strategies ENGOs Dear colleagues, Within the framework of my PhD research, I am looking for some useful texts on the major environmental NGOs (such as Greenpeace, WWF, …). More concretely, I was wondering whether anyone can recommend some literature on location strategies of these environmental NGOs? This is a rather specific topic, so texts may also refer to broader themes such as lobbying activities, ... as long as there is a link with location strategies (office network). Thank you and kind regards Sofie Bouteligier Research Group on Global Environmental Governance and Sustainable Development Institute for International and European Policy Faculty of Social Sciences University of Leuven Belgium Start een boeiend online leven...helemaal gratis! Windows Live http://get.live.com
RE: Meat, policies, and climate change
Should also have mentioned Susan George for large perspective framework analyis. Angus From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Sonja Walti [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, January 31, 2008 9:50 AM To: gep-ed@listserve1.allegheny.edu Cc: ctspink Subject: Meat, policies, and climate change Dear GEP-ED colleagues, I'm teaching a graduate course on the policy process and have students write papers on particular issues in select countries including the US, one of which is climate change. After reading Mark Bittman's NYT article on Rethinking the Meat-Guzzler this weekend, a student is interested in writing on meat consumption and climate change, a topic with which I'm not very familiar. I took a look at the GEP archives and came across a recent related thread about the link between food, namely eating vegan, and climate change. However, the references mainly pertain to the 'consumption--climate change' link. As this is a policy process course, I would like the students to focus on the policy side of things. So my student's question will be something like What are the policies encouraging meat consumption? And why are those in place? or Why does climate change policy in the US (and elsewhere) focus more on energy and transportation than on food? I.e. why is there no policy to curb GHG in the food sector? It might also be interesting for her to take a look at a country that does have such a policy. I would appreciate hints (substantive ideas or references) to send her off in a productive direction. Many thanks! Sonja Walti Assistant Professor Department of Public Administration and Policy School of Public Affairs American University, Washington DC
RE: Meat, policies, and climate change
As you may know, U.S. policies encouraging meat production are old and, forgive the pun, deeply engrained. The most important are those that have seen livestock as a way of providing expanded markets for grains in a context of nearly constant overproduction in grains. (Something that is for the moment at least changing rapidly as a result of ethanol production--think of SUV's replacing cows and pigs as premier consumers of grain.) It is these policies, coming out of the overproduction crisis of the 1930's and then out of high yield seeds coming in the market as a result of plant breeding (at this stage associated with the term Green Revolution) in the early 1950's that led to massive government support for meat production and, more specifically, policies that encouraged feedlot and confined facility production. This was also tied into Public Law 480, providing food aid for the poor and hungry abroad as a huge sink for surplus production, very much a part of Cold War politics! in which the U.S. could be pictured (erroneously) as feeding the starving millions. Public Law 480 not only shipped surplus grain abroad at government expense, but also provided financing directly and indirectly (through such agencies as AID, the Export-Import Bank and OPIC) for expansion of feed lots and grain intensive methods of livestock production around the world. World Bank policies were tied into the same effort. At home, this was linked into marketing efforts, partly supported by an array of government programs, convincing people that highly-marbled, fatty beef was greatly to be preferred over anything else. (I eat very little red meat in the U.S. but love the grass-fed beef that predominates in Brazil, where I live a lot, and all you have to do to see how much healthier and tasty grass-fed beef is is to sample a little Brazilian steak, capable of creating conversion experiences for the more sensually inclined vegetarians) A lot of this health-related aspect has been superbly covered by Marion Nestle in her Politics of Food and earlier books. In addition, federal land policies providing cheap grazing leases in the West are an aspect of the story. A large critical literature on this developed in the 1960's and was rather neatly summarized by the famous Diet For a Small Planet by the freelancer Frances Moore Lappe (who used her proceeds to found the organization Food First!) She later moved away from the vegetarianism of the first book with other publications, including World Hunger: Twelve Myths. Food First! continues to put out popularly written, as well as some more scholarly literature that serves as an entry point even for those with a more scholarly purpose in mind. World Hunger: Twelve Myths came out in an updated edition (2000?--go to foodfirst.org) that has an entry level bibliography on all of this. (Disclosure statement: I was a Board member of Food First and President for a time). The literature is obviously vast. Marty Strange, Fred Buttel, Patricia Allen and others are among excellent policy analysts who have treated this. In a much larger framework, I think that my The Death of Ramon Gonzalez: the Modern Agricultural Dilemma is useful in framing the issue, even though its field study and much of the rest focuses on pesticides.Cynthia Hewitt-Alcantara and Keith Griffin have also provided large frame works that have become the foundation for the larger literature produced since they were active. That's a start. Good luck to your student. Even starting with these minimal suggestions, she will find the field of policy analysis in this area quickly expanding beyond manageability and will want surely to narrow down. Angus Wright Professor Emeritus of Environmental Studies California State University Sacramento From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Sonja Walti [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, January 31, 2008 9:50 AM To: gep-ed@listserve1.allegheny.edu Cc: ctspink Subject: Meat, policies, and climate change Dear GEP-ED colleagues, I'm teaching a graduate course on the policy process and have students write papers on particular issues in select countries including the US, one of which is climate change. After reading Mark Bittman's NYT article on Rethinking the Meat-Guzzler this weekend, a student is interested in writing on meat consumption and climate change, a topic with which I'm not very familiar. I took a look at the GEP archives and came across a recent related thread about the link between food, namely eating vegan, and climate change. However, the references mainly pertain to the 'consumption--climate change' link. As this is a policy process course, I would like the students to focus on the policy side of things. So my student's question will be something like What are the policies encouraging meat consumption? And why are those in place? or Why does climate change policy in the US (and
RE: Vegan and Environmental Impact
World Hunger: Twelve Myths, revised edition from Food First! takes this up in a popular treatment, but with scholarly sources cited. On specific cases, there is considerable literature out on the effect of corn exports to Mexico as a result of lowering restrictions under NAFTA. Angus Wright Professor Emeritus of Environmental Studies California State University, Sacramento -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] on behalf of Andrew Biro Sent: Tue 2/13/2007 12:08 PM To: Kai N. Lee; gep-ed@listserve1.allegheny.edu Subject: RE: Vegan and Environmental Impact Hi, Apologies for the delay in picking up this thread... I'm very interested in Kai's observation: In Ghana a year ago, I saw billboards advertising rice grown in Texas and California, whose low prices (counting transportation across the seas) had decimated the poor farms of the west African interior. I know that US (also Canadian) agricultural exports have increased substantially since the 1960s. Does anyone know of any sources that document the impact of agricultural imports on small producers. I'm particularly interested in finding sources that could provide more of an overview of this as a global trend, as opposed to single case studies. I know Mike Davis talks about this in Planet of Slums, as a factor pushing rapid urbanization in the global South, but I can't think of any others... Cheers, Andrew Andrew Biro Dept. of Political Science Acadia University Wolfville, NS B4P 2R6 (902)585-1925 [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
RE: RE: Vegan and Environmental Impact
As I am sure many of you know, the main environmental and justice arguments (rather than animal liberation arguments for not eating meat were pretty well-laid out in Frances Moore Lappe's Diet for a Small Planet and others have been improving on and elaborating those arguments for some time. I was convinced by those arguments for many years and became a vegetarian for quite some time largely based on them. I later became convinced that the best eating model was based on what the best kind of farm would produce. The best kind of farm and farming system, I believe, is one that is a rough mimic of natural processes, and that as such incorporates animals in a variety of ways and makes modest amounts of meat consumption a logical consequence of the production system. This is an agroecological approach rather than a minimal energy or minimal materials approach, though in the larger picture, it would tend to minimize energy and materials production. Of course, large scale or l! ong term feed lot production would not be part of this.and meat would be produced in ways that are far different, ecologically and ethically, than what we now have. The farm, in fact, would look a lot more like what the mixed production farms of the American midwest looked like one hundred years ago--the kind many of us older folks remember from our childhoods. It is also a kind of farm one still encounters frequently outside of Europe and the U.S. (Eating very little beef in the U.S., I am much more relaxed about eating the delicious and more healthful grass fed beef one finds in Brazil and elsewhere--which of course brings in rainforest issues, another complicated--much more complicated than generally believed--issue.) I think many ecologically conscious farmers have come to the same kind of conclusions. Other than my own work on this, my main guides for this have been Wes Jackson and Miguel Altieri. I have heard Michael Pollin speak, but haven't read his book yet, but I gather it is the approach he takes, too. Having served on the board of Food First, the organization Frances Moore Lappe founded with the proceeds of Diet for a Small Planet, I can say that it is predominantly the evolution of thought that most people involved with that organization, I believe including Lappe, have taken. Let me emphasize that this would require dramatic change in our agricultural system--it is not a status quo argument. But it is based more on genuine ecological reasoning, in my view, than the standard vegetarian arguments. Of course, if you believe that it is wrong to kill and eat animals, then that brings in an entirely different set of considerations, different from those I have outlined here. Angus Wright Professor Emeritus of Environmental Studies California State University, Sacramento From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] on behalf of Dale W Jamieson Sent: Wed 1/31/2007 10:23 AM To: Maria Ivanova Cc: 'Mary Pettenger'; gep-ed@listserve1.allegheny.edu Subject: Re: RE: Vegan and Environmental Impact 'animal liberation' is of course important, but i was thinking of 'the way we eat'. an account of the study on vegan diets and co2 emissions that i was referring to can be found here: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/04/060414012755.htm cheers, dale ** Dale Jamieson Director of Environmental Studies Professor of Environmental Studies and Philosophy Affiliated Professor of Law New York University http://www.esig.ucar.edu/HP_dale.html Contact information: Steinhardt School, HMSS 246 Greene Street, Suite 300 New York NY 10003-6677 212-998-5429 (voice) 212-995-4832 (fax) Knowing what we know now, that you could vote against the war and still be elected president, I would never have pretended to support it.--Hilary Clinton parody on Saturday Night Live - Original Message - From: Maria Ivanova [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: Wednesday, January 31, 2007 12:45 pm Subject: RE: Vegan and Environmental Impact Mary, I want to support Dale's suggestion about Peter Singer's book Animal Liberation. I just showed Al Gore's Inconvenient Truth to my Global Environmental Governance class and asked students to post their reactions to the class website. The note below from one of my students goes right to the issues you raised. I had been meaning to see An Inconvenient Truth for a while, only puttingit off because I felt like I knew most of what Al Gore would have to say. I had assumed, keeping abreast of environmental issues and taking small measures in my personal life towards less consumption, that I was well-enough informed. While some of the film's contents did not surprise me, it reinforced a sense of urgency and a desire to do more. I can relate most to the story Gore told about his family giving up tobaccofarming stating that (I have to paraphrase), whatever once served as justification could no longer do. Recently I took up a vegetarian
RE: Public goods really easy piece? and Wikipedia
just a word of endorsement for Beth's approach. We often assume that students know about peer review and editorial processes, as well as the different functions of a citation, when there is no particular reason to believe that they would have been taught or discovered this. It is also a good way to help students understand what it isw that professors do all day--a mystery that many of them never solve and that leaves a rankling dissatisfaction that is usually unjustified. Angus From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] on behalf of mbetsill Sent: Wed 9/13/2006 9:01 AM To: Global Environmental Politics Education ListServe Subject: RE: Public goods really easy piece? and Wikipedia I'm using the same approach (in my own work as well). Wikipedia can be a handy starting point but I think a good degree of skepticism is useful as well. Michele = Original Message From VanDeveer, Stacy [EMAIL PROTECTED] = Kate and all, I tell me students they should not use it as a citation, generally, but they can use it to help them find other cites, difinitions, names, and such that will them get started in finding more authoritative citations. I normally tell them that, if they do this, they will often discover both how useful wikipedia can be and how off base or biased in can also be... --sv From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] on behalf of Kate O'Neill Sent: Wed 9/13/2006 10:28 AM To: Raul Pacheco; Global Environmental Politics Education ListServe Subject: Re: Public goods really easy piece? and Wikipedia Raul and others, I'm posting this to the list because I'm usually uncomfortable with letting students rely on Wikipedia as a source. But, as it happens, the wikipedia piece on public goods is pretty good (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_goods) and certainly meets accessibility criteria on both counts. In fact, it's pretty much a public good itself, at least for anyone with an internet connection. So, my question is: does anyone know of a set of guidelines for students' use of Wikipedia? I assigned a research paper to my class last semester, and nearly all of them used wikipedia in their citations, in fact, as their fundamental source for definitions etc. I'd not anticipated this, so we hadn't talked about it. I tend to use it to refresh my knowledge, and would rarely see it as authoritative, unless I can verify it myself. But, banning students from citing it also doesn't seem a constructive way to handle this. Thanks for any attention to this... cheers, Kate At 2:00 AM -0700 9/13/06, Raul Pacheco wrote: Dear all, A few of my students are having a really hard time grasping the notion of public goods (and global public goods). I asked them to read Hardin's 1968 seminal article and also a paper by Scott Barrett on the global public goods framework (which might be interesting for people who were recently discussing the Sunstein article comparing Kyoto and Montreal - Barrett does compare both as well). Still, they have had a hard time. Can anybody point out to a really easy, accessible source that defines public goods in a clear, coherent way? Thank you sincerely, Raul -- - Raul Pacheco-Vega Institute for Resources, Environment and Sustainability The University of British Columbia 413.26-2202 Main Mall Vancouver, British Columbia Canada V6T 1Z4 -- Michele M. Betsill Associate Professor Department of Political Science Colorado State University Fort Collins, Colorado 80523
RE: Food issues
To the many excellent suggestions here, I will add By way of shameless self-promotion, many people have found my book, The Death of Ramon Gonzalez: The Modern Agricultural Dilemma to be very useful in such classes. It is now available in a 2005 updated version from the University of Texas Press. The first edition came out in 1990 and it has been used in classes in nearly every social science, and some science and health disciplines, since then. Though it focuses on a case study of pesticide use in Mexico in the agro-export vegetable industry, it is really about how modern agriculture went wrong, with a history of the Green Revolution and a critique of development theory, all in non-academic language. It is international, but ties strongly back to the U.S. in a variety of ways. The new edition reconsiders much of the material in terms of the debates over globalization, NAFTA, immigration, neoliberalism, the environmental Kuznets curve, as well as updating info on pesticide use and toxicology. And while I'm at this shameless self-promotion, you might also want to look at Wendy Wolford and my book, To Inherit the Earth: The Landless Movement in the Struggle for a New Brazil, Food First Books, 2003. It is a history and analysis of the Brazil's MST, the landless worker's movement for agrarian reform, and again touches on a large variety of issues, food and nutrition, environment, inequality, development theory, social movements, etc. I get a lot of good feedback on how both books work in the classroom. Angus Wright -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] on behalf of Leslie Wirpsa Sent: Mon 5/8/2006 7:55 PM To: gep-ed@listserve1.allegheny.edu Subject: Food issues Hello to you all. I know this is quarter and semester crunch time, but I have a request. I am working on a syllabus for my Global Connections course at the International Studies program at DePaul University. I want to teach about local/global changes and dynamics (environmental, economic, political, social, cultural) through the prism of food. Historically grounded. GMO debates, Green Revolution etc included. This is a non-majors' course. I am trying to get my head around key literature and compelling cases (introduction of perch in lakes in Tanzania to create an export market to Europe, for example), plus good documentaries (not too long) related to the global food system/famine/malnutrition and inequality/over consumption/ impact of export oriented strategies on local economies/energy and transport food miles etc. Any and all suggestions would be appreciated. Ideas about multi-media/genre sources (documentaries, radio pieces, novels) in addition to books and articles would be appreciated. Thanks! Leslie Wirpsa Ciriacy Wantrup Post Doctoral Fellow in Natural Resource Studies University of California, Berkeley
RE: Translation of non-English documents
I am absolutely with Kathryn and Anthony on this. I would add a couple of observations: one, that if a person has not experienced learning a second or third language, he or she is far less sensitive to and imaginative about how things might be misconstrued in the translation process, and may also be a less careful listener to those who are speaking English but who are not native speakers. In general, learning languages makes one sensitive to linguistic nuance, and, particularly in diplomacy, this is a very important thing. Translations are virtually never precise equivalences to the original documents. I am working on a large collaborative international project now where people are bringing a variety of first languages (English, French, Slovak, Latvian, German, etc) but the official language is English. It is clear that the momentum of English dominance of the process will affect the nuances of the final report. Though it may not be terribly relevant to this discussion, I also just want to make the point that learning a language is one of those fundamental ways of opening up mental processes and cultural understanding. My far from perfect skills in Spanish and Portuguese and reading skills in some others are among those most treasured accomplishments of having lived a long life, because of the feeling that my sense of the world is larger and richer as a result. Angus Wright -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] on behalf of Kathryn.Hochstetler Sent: Thu 4/13/2006 9:11 AM To: gep-ed@listserve1.allegheny.edu Cc: 'Kirsten Luxbacher' Subject: Re: Translation of non-English documents I would answer the question a different way. I am fluent in Spanish and Portuguese, and have never done a research project in global environmental politics where I did NOT use both languages. While formal multilateral government documents are routinely translated, regional documents often are not, as previous posters have said. Documents by non-state actors are frequently not translated; nor are national government documents that may be important sources for understanding why countries took the positions they did in the multi-lateral treaties. And, of course, for actually observing negotiations, you can pick up a lot more about what's going on if you speak languages other than English. What is said and written in English (especially English only) is often a biased subset of what is part of global environmental politics. On the question of the quality of translation, I have heard an amusing story about negotiations in preparation for the Beijing conference on women. Delegates were having the usual sticky discussion about the word gender, which the Vatican and others reject, since they say it implies there may be more categories than male and female. They prefer the two-category word sex. In the middle of negotiations, the Spanish language negotiators came in to find that in their translation only, the word genero had been replaced with the word sex... Another interesting translation note (sorry, I really am fascinated by this issue): when I started studying South America in 1989, Spanish-speakers claimed they simply couldn't understand Portuguese while Brazilians had some ability to understand Spanish. But a decade later when I started studying the Mercosur free trade area, it turned out that communication was possible after all, if there was enough reason to do it. At Mercosur meetings, the Brazilians talk Portuguese and the Spanish-speakers talk Spanish, the documents are in whatever the language of the rotating presidency, and translation is a non-issue. Kathy Beth DeSombre wrote: Simon [EMAIL PROTECTED] on Thursday, April 13, 2006 at 10:10 AM -0500 wrote: I'm doing a project for a spanish translation class that i am in and I was wondering how frequently you are faced with a lack of translated documents, or quality translated documents, (in any language) while doing research. Do you know if this is a major problem in the study of global environmental politics? I'm with Ron -- where I've run into the problem most (and have had to simply eliminate some cases from a database) is regional treaties in languages like Czech that I can't speak. I'm sure there are articles in other languages that would be useful if I could access them in translation, but if I don't know the languages I may not even be aware that they exist, so I don't know what I'm missing. Beth
RE: Contemporary structural dependency for undergrads?
Oh, I also should mention that Food First is putting out a new, updated edition of Breakfast of Biodiversity. Also that Vandemeer and Perfecto are zoologists at the University of Michigan. Angus Wright From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] on behalf of Kate O'Neill Sent: Sun 8/21/2005 6:36 PM To: Robert Darst; GEP-Ed Subject: Re: Contemporary structural dependency for undergrads? Dear Rob, et al, This is not a direct answer to your question - but this article (which I am reading looking to include it in my grad. syllabus) does contain some more recent cites to dependency theory (though the originals make for interesting reading still, too!) - though they may be overviews. Thomas, Caroline and Peter Wilkin (2004). Still Waiting after all these Years: 'The Third World' on the Periphery of International Relations. British Journal of Political Science and International Relations 6: 241-246. kate At 7:05 PM -0400 8/21/05, Robert Darst wrote: Here's a poser: I'm looking for a reasonably contemporary presentation of structural dependency theory (i.e., the idea that national economic development is primarily determined by a country's position in the international distribution of wealth and power) that will be accessible to first-years and sophomores. I feel silly assigning pieces from the 60s and early 70s--that's so, like, ANCIENT--yet I haven't come across a clear presentation of this theory in the anti-globalization literature (though it often lurks in the background). Suggestions, anyone? Thanks, Rob Assistant Professor of Political Science University of Massachusetts Dartmouth --
